


i'm trying for a quiet mind

by heyitsathrowaway



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, M/M, like absolutely miserable sorry everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsathrowaway/pseuds/heyitsathrowaway
Summary: “And this is how you’re choosing to commemorate your friend’s death? With a celebration?” Felix shakes his head. “Let go of me.”“Aren’t you the one who’s always going on about how the dead are dead?” says Sylvain. He leans in. “Maybe I just don’t think you should be alone right now.”Felix can’t help but laugh at that. He knows it won’t help. He knows it’ll only get him what it does: Sylvain’s concerned eyes on him, and a hand ghosting up his cheek.-Sylvain and Felix help Edelgard win the war.





	i'm trying for a quiet mind

**Author's Note:**

> Vague spoilers for Edelgard's route, and also by implication the Sylvain/Felix paired ending in non-Blue Lions routes. it's catie's fault!

“Hey.” Felix shrugs off the hand Sylvain puts on his shoulder, but he turns around. The courtyard of Enbarr’s palace—Edelgard will call it something else, but that’s what it is and always will be, at heart—is dim. “Where are you sneaking off to? You know there’s a feast, right?”

“I’m aware,” Felix says. “Did you need something?”

Sylvain tucks his hands into his pockets, apparently unbothered by Felix’s tone or his expression. Or his words, but Sylvain’s never paid much attention to those. “Don’t be like that. In case you haven’t noticed, Felix, we won the war! Come have a drink or five. Celebrate!”

Sylvain’s false good cheer has always grated on Felix’s nerves, but tonight, it’s unbearable. “Yes, Sylvain. We won. Go get the girl, or whatever it is you think you deserve as your _prize_.”

“Hey,” Sylvain says again, and this time, his grip on Felix’s wrist is tight. Serious now, just like his voice. “It’s been long enough, hasn’t it? We both know I’m not interested in whatever girls are going to be hanging off the noble war hero.”

Felix looks down at Sylvain’s hand around his wrist, and then back up. His eyes are bright. Felix thinks he might be drunk. “Don’t tell me what I do or don’t know.”

“Then stop playing dumb,” Sylvain says. “I know, I know. That’s rich coming from me, huh?”

“What exactly are you interested in if not girls, Sylvain?” Sylvain tries to tug him in closer, but Felix takes a step back. Sylvain doesn’t let him go. Felix is struck, very suddenly, by the urge to roll his eyes. “Now? You really want to do this now?”

“What would have been a better time? At school when you wouldn’t let anyone near you, or during the war when all you would talk about was finally putting down the boar? Take it from an expert: none of that was very conducive to romance.”

Felix stares at him. His wrist is still hanging loosely in Sylvain’s grip. If he wants to draw his sword, he’s going to have to pull himself free. “Are you _jealous_? Of a dead man?”

Sylvain snorts, but there’s no humor in his eyes. “Do I seem like the kind of guy who gets jealous?” he says. He tugs on Felix’s wrist. “Felix. He was my friend too.”

“And this is how you’re choosing to commemorate your friend’s death? With a celebration?” Felix shakes his head. “Let go of me.”

“Aren’t you the one who’s always going on about how the dead are dead?” says Sylvain. He leans in. “Maybe I just don’t think you should be alone right now.”

Felix can’t help but laugh at that. He knows it won’t help. He knows it’ll only get him what it does: Sylvain’s concerned eyes on him, and a hand ghosting up his cheek.

It’s just like after Glenn died. Felix tried to hole himself up in his room, but Sylvain didn’t let a locked door or a barricade of bookshelves or even Felix’s fists stop him. He climbed in through the window and he wrapped Felix up in his arms, and he promised that he would never leave him, not like Glenn did. A stupid, worthless, foolhardy promise, impossible to keep: so exactly like Sylvain.

“I’m never anything else,” Felix tells him.

“I know,” Sylvain says. His thumb brushes below the corner of Felix’s eye. “I know that better than anyone. But let’s pretend for awhile, alright? It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

It is easy. Sylvain leads Felix back to his room by the wrist, his grip still tight, like he’s afraid Felix is going to run away. Felix doesn’t bother telling him that he won’t; it’s nice, having something solid to hold onto. Just for a moment. 

“Wow,” Felix says, sitting on Sylain’s bed and yanking off his boots. “I’m surprised you actually know how to make your bed.”

Sylvain should take a jab like that and run with it. He should be grateful that Felix is willing to go along with him, to pretend that between them, this can be anything but heavy. But instead he sits down next to Felix and silently takes his chin in his hand, face utterly solemn. It’s always been a little terrifying, how easily he can turn the charm on and off. Felix has no idea how any of those girls of his were ever fooled. 

They probably never got to see him like this. 

“Are you just going to stare at me all day?” Felix demands.

Sylvain doesn’t laugh or tease him. He leans down and kisses him, so gently that it makes Felix’s skin crawl. He’s holding onto Felix the way Felix holds onto his blade: like it’s something that will save him.

Felix shoves him back. “Don’t do that,” he says.

“What?” Sylvain asks. His fingers slide along the back of Felix’s neck, making him shiver. “Kiss you?”

“Treat me like I’m—” _Precious._ He shakes his head. “One of the girls you’re always having it off with. I’m not here to be wooed by the famous war hero Sylvain Gautier.”

“_Now_ who’s jealous,” Sylvain says, without heat. “Fine.” He shoves Felix over, yanking both of his wrists and pinning them above his head. Felix tries to wrestle out of his grip, but Sylvain’s always been stronger than he acts. He bears down until it hurts. “Is this what you want?”

It’s better this time, when Sylvain kisses him. It stings. It isn’t quiet or expectant or filled with anything but heat. 

Sylvain bites his jaw, nosing behind Felix’s ear. “Alright, so you like it rough. Is this what it was like with you and Dimitri?”

Felix turns his face away. He gasps when Sylvain bites him again, sucking a mark against his throat. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Is this what you _wanted_ it to be like?”

“I wanted my _friend_ back,” Felix snarls. He tries to twist out of Sylvain’s grip, but he doesn’t let go. “Do you think I wanted him to be like he was? Do you think I wanted him to die? Do you think I _wanted_ to be the blade that killed him?”

“Shh,” Sylvain says. He leans more of his weight on Felix’s wrists, until Felix has to close his eyes, taking in a shuddering breath.

“He was my friend,” Felix says. His eyes feel hot. “But my friend died in Duscur. After that, there was only ever the boar.”

“Liar,” Sylvain says affably, like calling to like. He kisses Felix on the cheek. “You loved him until the end.”

Felix’s eyes snap open, but Sylvain’s expression is serene. “Shut up. How could you possibly know that?”

Sylvain drops his hands and sits back, stripping off his shirt. Felix pushes himself up on his elbows, feeling suddenly unmoored. He can feel his pulse pounding in his wrists. He’s going to have spectacular bruises; it’s too bad Sylvain won’t be around to admire them.

“Because I loved him too, idiot,” Sylvain says, like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t kill him every day, what they did to Dimitri. Like he doesn’t even care. 

He laughs, when Felix knocks him over, when Felix fists a hand in his hair and holds him down, biting his lip until he bleeds. Felix wants to kill him for it. That’s what he does to the things he loves, isn’t it?

“How do you do it?” Felix demands. Sylvain’s nails are digging into his back.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Sylvain says. He yanks Felix’s shirt over his head, and then unties his hair, wrapping a handful in his fist. “But I bet the answer’s probably practice.” He winks. He looks exactly like he means it. 

“That,” Felix says helplessly. “How do you pretend it doesn’t hurt?” 

Sylvain smiles at him. It makes Felix ache just to look at. His eyes might as well belong to a corpse. “Practice,” Sylvain says. He uses his grip on Felix’s hair to drag him forward into a kiss. His hands are warm, on Felix’s cheek and on his waist. Felix holds him by the shoulders and feels like a wave is dragging him under.

He’s never been a man for ghosts. The dead are in the ground, and the living are above it; Dimitri could never understand that. It’s why he had to die. But lately, Felix hasn’t been able to stop thinking about them: all the people he’s left bleeding in his wake. He’s beginning to understand how Dimitri lost his mind.

But Sylvain is alive. He’s so solid under Felix that he has to be. He gets Felix out of the rest of his clothes and lays him back across his freshly made bed, because he’s never been as much of a layabout as he pretends to be. He kisses from Felix’s jaw to his neck to his collarbone and keeps going down, and he bites him, hard, every time Felix starts to squirm. He holds Felix’s hips against the bed with a grip hard enough to bruise.

It would be nice, Felix thinks, to stay here forever. But they can’t. He digs his nails into Sylvain’s scalp and snarls at him to get on with it, and Sylvain laughs like it’s actually funny before he puts his mouth on Felix’s dick.

Felix gasps at the ceiling. He presses the back of his hand against his mouth.

“Don’t be like that, sweetheart,” Sylvain says, pulling off just long enough for Felix to register that his voice has gone low and rough. He can’t help but remember the way Sylvain sounded after he almost died, when Felix said he wanted to hug him. It feels like a very long time ago.

“Call me sweetheart again and I’ll kill you,” Felix says, but he presses his hands into the sheets instead. He figures the least he can do is let Sylvain hear him moan, if that’s what he wants.

Sylvain is still Sylvain; nothing Felix says or does convinces him to go any faster. He doesn’t let Felix move, even when Felix kicks a heel against his back. Sylvain sucks him leisurely until he aches, as if they have all the time in the world.

He really is good at pretending.

“Sylvain,” Felix says, finally, registering how broken his voice is. He can’t think. He’s pretty sure that was probably the point. That should annoy him more than it does. 

Sylvain bites him affectionately on the thigh. “Something you want?”

“Shut up,” Felix says. He throws an arm over his eyes. He thinks they might be wet. “You’d better hurry up if you want to get yours.” 

“Oh, is _that_ how it is,” Sylvain says. “Well, if you insist.”

He barely pauses for breath after that. Felix comes with his arm still over his eyes, making a sound he hardly recognizes. 

Sylvain levers himself up and tucks himself along Felix’s side, slinging an arm over his waist. “See,” he says smugly, pressing a smacking kiss against Felix’s cheek. “Practice.”

“I hate you,” Felix says. He rubs at his eyes. He can feel Sylvain about to say something else, so he shoves him over before he can. Wrapping a hand around his dick is about as effective at shutting him up as Felix always imagined it would be. 

Sylvain really is pretty, when he forgets that someone’s watching. He tips his head back and squeezes his eyes shut as Felix touches him, as honest as he ever is. 

It really would be nice, to stay here forever. Sylvain would let him. It’s what they promised, after all. Sylvain might be a liar, but he takes his stupid promises seriously.

But they can’t. They won’t. Felix twists his wrist, and tries his best to memorize it, the way Sylvain looks when he comes. 

Surprising exactly no one, Sylvain is a cuddler. He drapes himself over Felix like a blanket and kisses him sloppily on the mouth.

Felix should make a face and say something biting about the taste. He should let Sylvain keep the mood light. That’s what he’d do, if he was going to stick around.

“I can’t stay.” Felix pulls away and rolls out of from under Sylvain, feeling much colder than before. 

Sylvain groans. “We both know that’s a lie. Can you stop being stubborn for once in your life? Usually it’s cute, but right now it’s getting on my nerves.” Felix ignores him, and starts pulling on his clothes. Sylvain sits up. “It’s the middle of the night. Where are you even going to go?”

“I have my own bed, you know.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What does it matter? I can’t exactly go back to the Kingdom and become the head of House Fraldarius,” Felix says. “I killed the last person to hold that title. Or did you forget about that?” 

“You really couldn’t relax for five minutes, could you,” Sylvain says to the ceiling. His voice is a mess. “Of course not. Yeah, you killed him. I killed my brother. This war hasn’t exactly been great for family relations. Do you think that’s what your father would want? For you to throw your whole life away?”

“It doesn’t matter what my father would want,” Felix says. He stares down at his hands. They’re shaking. “He’s dead. I killed him. And he called me a traitor, anyway. He was right.” It’s a good thing the dead don’t talk. Rodrigue would never shut up, if he knew Felix had struck down his king. 

“Felix.” Sylvain reaches out for him, but this time, Felix is faster. He steps away, pulling on his boots and his swordbelt. 

Sylvain watches him from the bed, not bothering to smile. Maybe they’ve both had enough of pretending for one night. Felix can’t meet his eyes. He yanks his sword from his belt, still in its sheath. He tosses it onto the bed in his place.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Sylvain asks. 

“That sword belonged to my father,” Felix says. It’s also the one that killed him. “I don’t want it. Do whatever you like with it. It’s not mine anymore.” 

Sylvain takes it, turning it over in his hands. “Dimitri would never believe this,” he says, voice sullen. “Neither would Glenn. What would he say, if he saw you throwing away your sword?”

“I’ll get another one,” Felix says. “And I don’t care what the corpses think.”

Sylvain’s knuckles are white around the sword. “Fine. Keep saying that. What about what _I_ think?”

“We both know I’ve never cared about that.”

Sylvain doesn’t laugh. Felix turns away.

Things really have changed since they were children; once he’s out the door, Sylvain lets him go. Maybe the sword will protect him, or maybe it won’t. Either way, Sylvain is better off without him. If he stays too close to Felix, he’ll just end up dead like the rest of them. 

Felix has known it for awhile now, ever since his blade struck Dimitri: the only hope of them keeping their promise anymore is if they kill each other. And Felix won’t do that. Sometimes, he thinks it’s the only thing he won’t do.


End file.
